


Within Arm's Reach

by TrippinOverMyFandoms



Series: Swords And Arrows [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Everyone thinks too much, M/M, how it really happened, thoughts, why cant they be together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 18:11:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14338182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrippinOverMyFandoms/pseuds/TrippinOverMyFandoms
Summary: They say their farewells but each man has thoughts on his mind while he walks away to be gone for who knows how long.A two-shot taking place in the end of 6x06*unbeta-ed





	1. Oliver

At first it’s a simple departure, our adventures, our paths, that were once intertwined into a tangled knot seem could come unwound just like that. He leaves to start the next chapter in his own adventure while I’m left standing and expected to return to mine just as easy.

But I find myself watching him go and thinking about the ten years we spent as a section of the forefront of each other’s minds. You can’t let something like that go effortlessly and I wonder if it’s hard for him to take those steps, getting further and further away from what was our reality for so long.

The departure in itself is a journey I don’t know if I want to end, I didn’t even want it to begin. At least while he was on the island I could find him easily and we weren’t really that far apart. Now that he’s off looking for his sons, I have no clue as to were he’ll go and if a decade will go by where we don’t speak or see one another, if our paths won’t cross again. If this is truly the last time we ever see each other in this life. I feel helpless in the thought and part of me wants to stop him, to call out, and ask for him to return with me to Star City, to be within my arms reach, but I know I won’t be able to.

Maybe if I keep these thoughts and the better memories somewhere in my head despite my daily life I’ll find some way to see him again


	2. Slade

The choice wasn’t easy but those last looks and first steps were what cemented my decision and I was too far gone to turn back now. Yet despite this I found it hard to let go of ten years of my life. As I recalled them I couldn’t exactly separate the memories by years, a lot of it just blurred together into a mix of good and very bad moments that made up the previous decade. 

However it was my job as a father to not give up on either of my sons, even if that meant continuing to take those steps further from Oliver no matter how hard they got. And they got hard.

Sometimes the mind is cruel in what it has you think up. Right now I recalled those two years on Lian Yu with the kid and everything that went right, all the tings that made the steps harder. I forced myself to remember just how much I had wronged him and everything horrible I had done to him just to keep one foot in front of the other. Though, despite it all, he had forgiven me and this is what causes me to take one single look over my shoulder but it’s too late, I’ve come too far and he’s no longer in sight.

If my emotions and thoughts keep up this way our paths just might have to cross once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a post on tumblr but I liked it so much I consider it a really short two-shot


End file.
